


No Longer Solitary

by TheLizardWriter



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Adoption, Anxiety, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Family Fluff, M/M, Other, Self-Esteem Issues, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-31 23:05:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20248129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLizardWriter/pseuds/TheLizardWriter
Summary: Drake Mallard is a loner, one who doesn't see himself as worthy of what he has. When he's Darkwing, he's someone and he's worth something, but is he enough as Drake Mallard to support the girl who wants him to adopt her? Launchpad tries to convince Drake that, yes, he's worth something no matter how he's dressed. In short, Drake is a bundle of insecurities and Launchpad is the rock that he needs in his life.





	No Longer Solitary

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Drake sighed as he quietly spoke into his phone.    
He was laying upside down on his couch in his too-small apartment, with his feet propped up on the top, and the feathers on his head barely reaching down to brush the carpet in time with his ceiling fan. The room was splattered across with the reds and pinks of the sunset, streaming in through his window - nearly time for patrols.

He nodded along as the man on the other side of the line replied, despite the futility of the action. He didn’t speak on the phone with much of anyone but his agent, typically. Well, there was the odd call from someone in the Darkwing Duck Fanclub (Which he was still the president of, so as to not arouse suspicion, obviously)... And, well, sometimes he’d call the supermarket before walking over there, just to make sure they weren’t out of his favorite brand of water again. In short, he wasn’t exactly a pro at phonecalls yet.

As a result, they still felt a little bumpy - but that was his life at the moment. Bumpy. Drake didn’t really mind though - at least most of the time - as he was about to tell the man on the other line. Instead, he was interrupted by the ear-splitting sound of metal against concrete, along with a scream from outside - another “bumpy” sound he wasn’t quite used to yet.

Nonetheless, he still exclaimed, “Oh, you’re here!” His words were light, despite the fact that a ship had just come to an abrupt crash landing outside his apartment building, “No, no, you’ll get the hang of parallel parking the Thunderquack!” He flipped forward from his lounging position on the couch, and he very nearly didn’t even stumble, thank you very much. “I’ll see ya in a sec!” Drake called into the phone while simultaneously struggling into his costume. He ran towards the door, doubling back only twice, when he realized he first forgot his mask, then his hat. He was still getting into his routine.

He tried to struggle as little as possible with his keys, not wanting any of his neighbors to notice that Darkwing Duck, the terror that flaps in the night, was emerging from Drake Mallard, the solitary nerd’s, apartment. For once, luck was on his side and the key didn’t get stuck in the lock, holding on with much more force than even Darkwing Duck was capable of producing, and that was quite a lot of force, mind you. After all, he was the terror that flapped in the night, the perfectly placed nail to blow out your tires, the elevator that skipped the floor of crime-- The elevator, right.

He pressed the button for the elevator, but before it even had the time to think about arriving, Drake had the thought that Darkwing Duck himself would never even think of taking the elevator when the stairs could deposit him directly into the lap of crime at least a few seconds earlier. Drake practically sprinted down the stairs, his feet only coming into contact with every third step, and the landings suiting only as a platform for him to drift into a spin and repeat the process again. The five flights of stairs (Which always smelled slightly like a smoky bathroom to him) were no match for Darkwing Duck! He came bursting out of the downstairs doors humming the Darkwing theme song and throwing mock punches in the air before coming to a skidding stop in front of the Thunderquack. Just another perfect start to another night of living the dream life of being a crime fighter,

“Hey D--” the larger, red-haired duck (Who just refused to be in costume, no matter how much Drake argued that he should), started to greet Drake by his civilian name, but Darkwing couldn’t have that happen. With the same fervor he’d use when launching into a fight with a crook, Drake scaled Launchpad’s full stature to clasp both of his hands over the other duck’s larger beak.

“I’m Darkwing Duck!” Drake hissed at his co-crime fighter, all too suddenly aware of his faux pas. After all, normal ducks didn’t just… climb each other like that. His heart started beating faster - what would Launchpad think of him? Should he just let go now? Or should he stick with his initial, albeit wrong, gut reaction? Before he even had the chance to make a decision, Launchpad laughed, and of course he wasn’t mad, because when was the gentle giant ever mad?

“Well, what I was going to say was ‘Hey DW,’” Launchpad chuckled, picking Drake up off of him and setting him back down on the street, “But if I my plan really was going to be to out your identity, you would have stopped me!”

“Well, uhh,” Drake scratched the back of his head for a second, but his social follies were not to be a big deal right now (No matter how big of a deal they felt to him), “Onwards! There are no doubt scandalous crooks sneaking around the streets of my city at this very second!” Drake flapped his cape a couple of times to really get into the spirit of Darkwing before his night of crime-fighting truly began.

“Good news is, the Thunderquack doesn’t even need any repairs this time!” Launchpad gestured towards the crashed vehicle behind them. It had a couple scrapes in the pain that Drake would no doubt be painting over the following morning in Scrooge McDuck’s garage, but the wings were still attatched! The windshield was barren of the splintering, spiderweb cracks that he’d seen grow across it on occasion. The landing gear wasn’t even crushed, which was a comfort despite the fact that he knew it most likely wouldn’t be used. In short, there was no fire, no real cosmetic damage, and the engines seemed to be working. All around a great crash!

So, the two of them climbed in and began their night of eliminating the scourge of Duckberg and the surrounding cities.Tuesdays tended to be pretty slow for whatever reason, so after they stopped a couple of petty thieves, it was really just flying around and looking for crimes to stop… As a result, the two partners in anti-crime had quite a bit of time to talk.

However, that time was currently absorbed by Drake - No, Darkwing, he mentally noted - wringing his hands together, opening and closing his beak, just trying to get the words he wanted out. It turned out it was so much easier to speak on the phone, when his closest friend couldn’t look at him so intently, waiting for him to be able to get his words out. What if when he finally spoke, his words managed to hit the one spot in Launchpad’s mind that would cause him to push Drake away? That seemed to be what happened with quite literally everybody else in his life, and honestly, he couldn’t stand to lose Launchpad.

Even when he was working mostly as an actor, he’d make friends on set, say the wrong thing once, and he’d never see them outside of work again. He didn’t think Launchpad would stop supporting him as his co-crime fighter, but what if he said something that would cause the larger duck to not come to Drake’s house at all the odd hours he desired, even if it was just to sit there on the couch and watch DVDs of the show that brought them so much closer together. Drake didn’t want to lose that. Drake was a solitary man, but something about the larger duck just made his heart long to be near him every second of the day.

His problem right now though wasn’t with his friendship with Launchpad (Not that the other duck could ever be a problem in Drake’s eyes). No, instead his problem was with the little girl with the bright green eyes and fiery red hair that had, get this, asked Darkwing Duck to adopt her. The worst part? He cared about her beyond all reason and really wished he could take her in. Why couldn’t everything be as easy as it was on TV? He couldn’t adopt a kid. He lived in a tiny apartment in the middle of the most crime-ridden part of Duckberg there was. He didn’t officially have a job anymore, seeing as S.H.U.S.H. wasn’t exactly something he could put on a resume. Plus… “Do you think I’d be able to be a parent?” Drake asked, his voice meek, void of the enthusiasm his costume normally bolstered him with.

“The boys always love when you come over,” Launchpad replied with a chuckle, looking directly at Drake, despite the fact that, or at least Drake assumed, he should be looking at the skies ahead of them.

“But that’s not the same... I’m talking about…” Drake waved his hands in the air, very nearly knocking his Darkwing hat off his head.

“I know, I know,” Launchpad chuckled, despite the very obvious severity of Drake’s dilemma, “I’m just saying you have more of a knack for it than you might think.”

Drake wanted to laugh at that one. He’d never really had ‘a knack’ for anything. Everything he did took some severe planning on his part. Brainstorming on how to not mess up, but inevitably failing in the exact ways he thought he was succeeding. If he couldn’t even navigate friendships without failing completely and utterly, how would he navigate family?

“I’ve never really had a family though,” Drake’s words were barely above a whisper. He couldn’t hear them over the pounding of his heart, which he was sure came out louder than that cursed sentence. He couldn’t burden Launchpad with his past, his problems, his useless feelings. He couldn’t dump everything that was wrong with him on Launchpad. Launchpad deserved Darkwing Duck, the bold and daring crime fighter, but instead he was being met with Drake Mallard, the whiny and nervous loner…

“She doesn’t have one right now either,” Launchpad replied, his voice much more subdued than normal. He was focused, dedicated. His words struck a chord in Drake’s heart. Although Drake never really had a family, she had had one. She’d had a family that loved and cherished her, and against all odds, compared to the true love she originally had, she thought that Darkwing Duck of all people could take care of her just as well.

“I don’t think she’ll like Drake Mallard,” Drake replied, “She only knows Darkwing. When I’m him… I’m useful,” Drake wanted to take back his words in a heartbeat. Every word that came out of his beak felt like it could possibly be his last. Or, at the very least, his last word that Launchpad would tolerate. That would be akin to being his last word at this point though.

“I like Drake Mallard,” Launchpad replied, nudging at Drake with his shoulder. “You do realize that Darkwing Duck is you, right? Just because you have a mask and a hat doesn’t mean you’re not the same duck underneath. See?” Launchpad took his own hat on and off a few times and grinned at Drake, as if to illustrate his point, but Drake couldn’t really bring himself to give much more than a forced smile, no matter how much it killed him.

“I like Darkwing better than Drake,” the smaller duck confessed, wrapping his cape around him. Would Launchpad think it weird if he were to lean into the shoulder that had ever so recently nudged him? He was supposed to be figuring out what he was going to do about his situation with Gosalyn, but instead, he was unraveling. He was the loser that moped in the night. He was the thread that catches on your sweater and causes it all to come undone. He was Drake Mallard. And he had forced all of that on Launchpad. What was he doing?

“That’s just silly,” Launchpad still wasn’t pushing him away. Instead, he said, “We’re calling it a night. I think Drake might need me more than Duckberg needs Darkwing right now.” Launchpad’s words rang out in Drake’s ears as a proclamation of how useless he was even at the one thing he thought he might end up being good at. What use was a superhero who had a breakdown while on duty?

“I’m sorry,” Drake threw his hat aside as he spoke. “I don’t deserve to be Darkwing, and I don’t deserve her trust in me,” he mumbled, as he struggled out of his cape, tossing that behind him as well. He was only stopped from ripping his mask off by a hand clasping his firmly.

“You deserve a lot more than you give yourself credit for,” Launchpad said, still holding Drake’s hand away from his face. “Plus, we gotta wear costumes in the Thunderquack! So no one knows our secret identities!”

That brought Drake out of his slump at least a little bit. It brought the Darkwing out in him enough to exclaim, “I’m the only one in costume here! What’s any different about you than normal?” He sat back up a little straighter, completely unaware that that was, in fact, Launchpad’s ultimate plan.

“Different hat! Dewey helped me pick it out. It’s a darker blue, so it’s more mysterious!” He said, waving his hands in front of his face in a fashion Drake could only assume was supposed to be mysterious (But what was mysterious about wiggling fingers?), and once more staring down at Drake rather than the clouds and the alarmingly close buildings on either side of them.

“You didn’t--”

Drake couldn’t even get his words out before Launchpad was chuckling away. “He might be my best friend, but it doesn’t mean I’d trust him with our secret!”

Best friend. That always hurt. Drake spent days and nights with Launchpad. He relied on him more than anyone else. He saw Launchpad differently than it seemed most people did. Still, Dewey was the larger duck’s best friend? Now, Drake was by no means jealous. Dewey was eleven years old. What kind of superhero would Drake be if he was jealous of an eleven-year-old? No, Drake wasn’t jealous, he just wished he could be in Dewey’s place. Totally different. He wanted to be the one with that moniker.

“Of course,” Drake replied, his tone sharp, not at all what he meant it to be. He stared out the windshield of the Thunderquack, avoiding eye contact at all extremes. It really was pretty to be above Duckberg at night. The clouds had a sort of glassy look to them. Just enough opacity to fog up the city below. He could see the lights of the cars moving, the flickering of the streetlamps, the lights turning off in houses below, the shops with all their lights left on, but he couldn’t see any one individual unless they dipped down below the clouds. Drake came to the startling conclusion that that must have been intentional. Launchpad didn’t want him seeing individuals, because he didn’t want him seeing something worth investigating.

Launchpad was silent for a while after Drake snapped at him. Was he going to park (Crash?) in front of Drake’s apartment, usher him out, and never speak to him again? Drake had done it again, hadn’t he? This is why he couldn’t be a parent. If he couldn’t even keep from snapping at the duck that he longed to spend every second with, what would happen if the girl trusted him as her parent? Would he end up making her resent her want of him as a parent? No doubt he would. He already cared about her more than he’d want to admit, so what would he do if they were a happy family for a while, then she decided she didn’t want him anymore? How could he be a dad when he couldn’t even keep a friend?

Drake decided that, if things were going downhill between him and Launchpad to begin with, that he might as well go for whatever comfort he could get before never seeing the larger duck again. The nagging that had been in the back of his head since Launchpad shouldered him took over, and he let himself almost fall sideways, laying his feathered head on Launchpad’s flight jacket padded shoulder.

Surprisingly, the pilot didn’t react to this in any way at all. Drake expected him to ask what he was doing. He expected to be pushed off. He expected… something negative at least. Instead, he was met with a deep intake of breath, and Launchpad finally speaking up again.

“He’s my best friend, but you’re more than that,” Launchpad said, grinning down at Drake, “The boys get upset when I crash. You go right along with it. You’re more than a best friend to me.”

“Fellow crime fighter, I assume you mean,” Drake mumbled, fighting the urge to nuzzle further into Launchpad’s shoulder.

“Something like that,” Launchpad said, narrowly missing one of the buildings of Duckberg as he started his descent into the McDuck Airfield. “Or rather, we’re partners in this.”

“Never had a partner before,” Drake said, his heart jumping for reasons he didn’t quite understand. Launchpad meant partners in crime, or rather, partners in anti-crime.

“Well, I’ve had a lot. They can come from anywhere,” Launchpad said, his voice sounding far off. “All of them had something in common though,” Launchpad took a deep breath before saying, “All of them are gone. They had a reason to leave, or I had a reason to leave.”

Drake didn’t know what was supposed to be comforting about that, but he had no reason to not continue listening. He was more comfortable than he’d ever been, laying against the man who had inspired him to follow his dreams. He tried to ignore the nagging suspicion in the back of his head that told him that his insecurities were going to be Launchpad’s reason to leave him.

“What I’m trying to say is, we’ve both, well, crashed, a bunch in our lives. I’ve probably done it a lot more than you, or, at least in planes,” Launchpad gritted his teeth, swerving for seemingly no reason. Drake felt his heart speed up uncontrollably, but he had a feeling it might not be from the impending crash. “But I’m also saying that neither of us has to do it alone anymore.”

“I’ve been alone for a long time,” Drake replied, succumbing to the urge to grab Launchpad’s much larger arm in both of his and pull himself closer. It felt wrong to allow the other to both see into Drake’s soul and be so physically close, but it was also what felt the most right to Drake. Life was bumpy, as he had been trying to get used to. Bumpy, but he was trying to not crash.

“And now you have a partner, uhhh, in crime-fighting, and you have a girl who is looking towards you so she doesn’t have to be alone.” The Thunderquack was quickly approaching the ground, but Launchpad was still staring intently down at the duck who was clinging to his arm.

“Launchpad, the ground,” Drake managed to squeak out, not wanting to interrupt their talk, but wanting even less to be jostled from his position of comfort. Launchpad snapped his head forward just in time to straighten out all at once and drop the remaining ten feet all at once. They, of course, went tumbling across the aircraft, but they managed to land surprisingly close to each other. Launchpad immediately sat up, looking around, but Drake just laid right where he was. He didn’t feel like putting forth the effort to get up right now, seeing how much effort just thinking was taking him at the time.

“Sorry about that, DW,” Launchpad chuckled. He scooted over to sit right next to the silent, smaller duck, but when Drake still didn’t move, Launchpad flopped backwards onto the floor of the Thunderquack, “Gee, I shoulda made this place more comfy,” he commented, patting his shoulder gently, “Uhh, you’re welcome to make yourself comfy if you’d like. I think this might be a ‘let’s lay on the floor and talk’ kind of night. Well, not that I’m used to those kinds of nights, I just figured since that was what was happening, that that was what was going to continue happening, and--” Launchpad was cut off of his rambling by Drake dragging himself over to plop his head down on Launchpad’s shoulder and beginning to speak so quietly that Launchpad had to immediately quiet down lest he lose Drake’s words in his own.

“I’ve never done this before,” Drake mumbled, “There’s lots I’ve never done,” he admitted, turning his head so he could lay perfectly in the nook of Launchpad’s arm, his beak resting on the mountain of a man’s chest. He managed to not even visibly panic when he felt the warmth of Launchpad’s arm wrapping around his body and pulling him a little closer. “I just don’t think I’m good enough to be her dad. How could I do it on my own? I know nothing.”

“Drake,” Launchpad nudged Drake’s beak upwards so the other duck could look him in the eyes, “You wouldn’t be alone. I’ll be there day and night. Anytime you need help.”

“You don’t think I’d let her down?” Drake asked, unable to tear his eyes away from Launchpad’s own.

“You’re not capable of letting people down,” Launchpad replied, “At least not those who really care about you. Plus, I’ve seen the way you protect her. You know in your heart, she’s already your family.”

“I’d have to move,” Drake replied, “And will the adoption agency even let me adopt her? I’m a single dad. I don’t have an official job. I’m a nervous wreck…”

“Secret agents are always living double lives,” Launchpad replied, “Secret missions, undercover identities, false pretenses, little flowers on your lapel, secret spy codes,” Launchpad paused, took a deep breath, and continued, “And uhhh, tons of really cool stuff that I don’t need to be talking about right now. I was going somewhere, I swear. Spies do cool things, they wear cool clothes, and they live secret lives…. Uhhh….”

“Are you saying S.H.U.S.H. could help me deceive the adoption agency into thinking I live a real life?” Drake asked, a smile creeping across his face.

“That’s it!” Launchpad practically yelled, his smile threatening to rip his own face in half it was so big - after all, he had finally succeeded in getting Drake to look happy for once in the night.

“So we’ll house hunt,” Drake said, immediately stuttering out, “T-That is if you’d actually like to accompany me.”

“Nothing I’d rather do,” Launchpad replied, “Unless we could all just move to a magical world made of ice cream…”

“That’d be a dream…” Drake mumbled, sounding just as lost in the thought of it as Launchpad, “And we could bring Gos with us, because what kid wouldn’t love a family outing to ice cream land?”

“Oh man, we’re going to go on the best adventures!” Launchpad replied, “And I can teach her how to crash!” Launchpad, to emphasize his point, waved his hand around in the air for a while, making engine noises until those noises began to sputter, and he crash-landed his imaginary hand airplane onto Drake, completing his hug of the smaller duck.

“Well, I’ll teach her how to defend herself, although she did a pretty good job of it when they attacked her outside the orphanage… She just needs some polishing up!” Drake wrapped his arms around one of Launchpad’s arms, ignoring how insanely quickly his heart was pounding. Was this really happening?

“You’re going to be a great dad,” Launchpad said, with Drake staring up at him, wrapped in a hug that neither of them ever wanted to end.

“And we can figure out how we’ll learn it all together. Tomorrow though, we’ll have to go tell her the good news,” Drake let himself close his eyes and dream of the future that the three of them had. He might end up not only having a daughter but having a daughter that got two entire dads all to herself...

So, the two weary partners fell asleep arm in arm on the floor of the Thunderquack, neither of them too sure where things were going, only that, for once, it probably wouldn’t end in a crash.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Drakepad fic, and I'm really hoping you guys like it! Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!


End file.
